Three For the Show
by Ramos
Summary: Told from Dotty's point of view, this is a 'how everyone finds out' story. I did my best to channel Beverly Garland's offbeat, 'Dotty' charm.


Author's note:

When Scarecrow and Mrs. King originally aired, I was absolutely in love with the show, and when it came out on DVD recently I bought them all and fell in love all over again. Dotty was such an amazing character and trying to get her voice right to tell this tale from her point of view was a bit of a challenge. I hope I've succeeded.

This is a "how the family finds out about their jobs" story, and a 'how the Agency found out they were involved' story, all rolled into one.

Rating: PG for a few swear words.

&&&SMK&&&

"That's mom's car!" Jamie's words cracked over several octaves; his voice was in the grips of puberty and tended to break when he got excited. Dotty glanced over at the side street where her youngest grandson pointed, and sure enough spied the familiar end of Amanda's station wagon parked on a side street, nearly half a block away.

She and the boys had spent the last hour walking around the shopping district, searching vainly find the little Thai café her friend recommended, but in all honesty her feet were beginning to hurt and the boys were starving. She was still determined to expand her grandsons' culinary palates, but their reaction had been dubious to begin with and was rapidly going downhill every time they passed a pizza parlor or burger joint.

"I thought your mother was working at the studio tonight," Dotty mused aloud. "Though, now that I think about it, I do believe I heard her say something about a theater when she was on the phone with Lee… and if I remember right, there's an old stage theater around here somewhere. Your mother must be going to one of those… oh, what does she call it… a screening. But I thought that theater closed years ago. And why would she park all the way down here?"

The boys shrugged, happy to do anything that didn't involve eating food that bore no resemblance to their normal fare. They weren't sure what Thai food was and didn't really want to find out; the only ties they knew were the ones that strangled them when their mom made them dress up, and they weren't thrilled with those, either.

"Oh, well. Maybe we can find your mother. It would be wonderful if she could give us a ride home; the cab fares these days are just outrageous!" They'd taken a taxi from their house in Arlington and the cab fare was all but highway robbery.

"Don't they usually have a party at those things?" Phillip asked.

"Yeah!" Jamie chimed in. "Can we crash the party? Do you think they'll have those little hot dogs on toothpicks?"

Dotty tried to give her grandsons a stern look, then shrugged and held up one well-manicured hand in surrender. "Why not? And maybe, just maybe, we can meet some of her co-workers," she mused to herself as she waved the boys towards the side street. For as long as Amanda had worked at I.F.F., Dotty had met only ONE of Amanda's co-workers. Not that she was complaining – Amanda hadn't brought just anyone home, she'd brought her boss!

It had only taken Dotty a few minutes of observation to realize that the handsome man was more than just a little fond of her daughter, and she could not have been happier to see the two of them dating these last few months. She hadn't been quite so thrilled earlier this week when she had caught Amanda sneaking into the house at six in morning, wearing a dreamy smile and the same clothes she'd had on when she left for work the day before.

She'd been proud of herself for telling Amanda that she didn't want to know any details, that Amanda was a grown woman and perfectly entitled to spend an evening out with a man, and who could blame her for spending that time with a hunk – was that the proper term? – like Lee Stetson… after all, Dotty herself had spent more than one evening in the company, so to speak, of a gentleman friend… She'd been in the middle of regaling her daughter about the wonderful weekend she'd spent at the coast with Hunter Conrad and a certain Rebecca's Fantasies negligee, but right in the middle of her open-minded, reasonable speech, Amanda had blurted out that Lee had proposed!

While she was ecstatic for Amanda, Dotty had been equally relieved. She knew Amanda would never have spent the night with a man she wasn't truly committed to, and it was wonderful to know that Lee was just as committed to her daughter. The two women had agreed, however, that it was just a bit early for the boys to be confronted with a step-father. The boys were warming up to the idea of a man in their mother's life, especially after Lee had spent some time with the boys over the last few weeks. She expected that by this summer she could start planning her daughter's wedding in earnest. Not that she intended to take over, but really, Amanda worked so many hours, and Lee had never been married before. Surely the two of them would appreciate the fact that Dotty was willing to help them in any way she could. Heaven knows, Lee Stetson looked spectacular in tuxedo, and Dotty had seen the most beautiful gown in the window at a little dress boutique in Georgetown just the other day….

Lost in the glow of planning her daughter's wedding, Dotty kept up a brisk pace as they left the main district and trotted down the side street, past Amanda's car, and headed roughly in the direction of where she remembered the theater to be.

"Hey, that's Lee's 'vette!" Phillip exclaimed, stopping at the mouth of a rather dark alley.

Sure enough, the sleek silver car was parked behind a plain sedan. Immediately, Dotty regretted that she only had her house keys in her purse; she could have taken Amanada's car, and then Lee could have given Amanda a ride home when they were through. And then that would allow the boys another chance to see their mother with the man that would become their stepfather, and wouldn't that be a good thing?

Frowning at the alley, Dotty finally realized that the neighborhood was rapidly deteriorating. The district they'd just left was lively, modern, and well lit, but here the older buildings loomed closer and darker. The early spring evening was diving headfirst into darkness, and the gathering shadows of the evening made her shiver.

Trying her best not to communicate her nervousness to the boys, Dotty was rapidly reconsidering her decision to seek out her daughter and the supposed film screening. Glancing behind them to see how far they'd come from the well-populated shopping district, she was surprised to see they'd walked at least two blocks farther than she'd thought. Even more alarming, however, was the man walking behind them. He wasn't terribly tall, but his wide shoulders were slouched into a leather jacket, looking like a B-movie version of James Dean in that 'Rebel' movie.

"Boys, I'm not sure this is really the right way," she told them casually, prodding them to cross the street. "Let's go over this direction. I'm sure that theater is just around the corner."

"No way," the boys began to complain. Before she could muster her firm Grandma voice, the man stepped out into the street, moving quickly and purposely towards them.

"Ma'am, I'm afraid I'm going to have to come with me," he told her.

Dotty gripped Jamie by the shoulder, looking the man up and down. His brown hair was curly and hung forward over one eye. Worn cowboy boots and jeans completed his look, and she adjusted her estimate from the 'Rebel' James Dean to the cowboy version.

"I BEG your pardon," Dotty shot back, scanning the street, which was distressingly empty.

"Please, ma'am, don't make a fuss," he told her, his voice lightly buttered with a Southern accent. "I'd really hate to have you make a scene." He smiled at her, as if trying to be reassuring, but he'd moved around them to cut them off from the theater. "Now, you just turn around there and we won't have any trouble."

Dotty inhaled sharply, ready to make a very large scene, when the open front of his jacket moved just far enough for her to see the gun hanging from the leather straps under his shoulder. She froze.

"Please," he repeated, gesturing back towards the alley they'd just crossed a few car-lengths ago. Drawing the boys close to her, she forced herself to take a few wooden steps in the direction he indicated as he moved around them to herd them towards the darkened alley.

"Francine, open up the van. We've got a problem here," he spoke in an undertone. Dotty glanced at him, but he was talking to his sleeve. She stared at him. His sleeve?

A metallic sound came from the shadows between the two buildings on either side of the narrow opening, and as her eyes adjusted to the lower light she made out the square end of a large delivery van, parked on the opposite side from Lee's corvette. The rear doors, emblazoned with a laundry service logo, opened wide and Dotty found herself propelled forwards by the man's large hand firmly in her back.

"Get in," he told her, pushing the boys as well.

"Leatherneck, what are you doing?" asked the blonde woman who held open the doors. Dotty was surprised to see a woman with such beautiful hair and stylish clothes skulking around in the back of a laundry van. She was somewhat familiar, but Dotty was too flustered to think about it.

"Now, Frankie - Mrs. West and the kids here were wandering right down the road and headed for trouble," the man replied. "You know we couldn't let that happen." His grin was entirely inappropriate, so far as Dotty was concerned. How did he know her name? And what kind of name was Leatherneck?

"All right, all right. Get them in here. And don't call me Frankie," the woman snapped. Before Dotty could protest, she had reached for Phillip's hand and pulled him into the truck. Jamie was picked up bodily and placed next to his brother, and the next thing she knew, the polite man with the gun had taken her by the elbow, all but forcing her upwards.

"Who are you people? What right do you have…"

"Mrs. West!" interrupted the blonde woman. "I don't have time for this. Please, just sit down, be quiet, and stay out of our way."

Dotty soon found herself seated on a tiny hard bench, her arms around the boys, all three of them staring at the wide array of video screens and electronic equipment that had never been part of any laundry service she'd ever seen before.

The man called Leatherneck helped shut one of the doors, but held the other one open as the blonde reached for it. "What's the rookie complaining about?"

The woman – Francine, Dotty guessed – rolled her eyes. "King wants him on the side entrance with her, and he thinks he's going to be missing all the action."

Leatherneck looked up with interest. "The side entrance? She worried about something?"

"Yes, but I'm not sure why. Amanda just said she had a bad feeling, and insisted on taking at least one other person. All I had to give was Jeffries, and now he's whining about it."

"Gotcha," he replied, then shut the door, plunging Dotty and her grandsons into the darkness lit only by the electronic screens at the end of the van.

"Well, let's all pay homage to Agent King's feelings," drawled the skinny man sitting in the back of the van, a set of headphones around his neck. He was also well dressed, his suit jacket hanging over the back of his chair, and a large pair of glasses perched on his nose. Dotty didn't much care for his tone of voice.

"Beaman, Amanda King once busted an international espionage ring because a company was ordering too much floor wax," Francine told him sharply as she resumed her seat. "If she wants an extra set of eyes on the side door, I'm giving it to her."

"They're talking about Mom!" Phillip's voice was awestruck.

Francine was too busy to answer him. "Showtime, people. Stage Hand One, a limo just pulled up to the back entrance."

"Copy, Stage Manager," replied a familiar voice. Francine flipped several switches and one of the monitor screens changed to show a tall man standing in a small room, an office of some sort. The heavy old carpet bore the tracks of several footprints through the dust that layered it, and his pacing cut more into it as each moment passed.

"That's Lee!" Jamie whispered. They watched the various monitors as it showed the inside of the theater and the men who made their way to where Lee Stetson waited.

Dotty tightened her arms around the boys and listened intently as her daughter's fiancé greeted the man that came in the limo and his driver, a burly man with a shaved head. They discussed several things that Dotty didn't understand, but the numbers they tossed about were astronomical sums of money. At first she was appalled at hearing her future son-in-law talk so nonchalantly about buying missile parts - or was it selling missile plans? But watching the people in the mobile headquarters (she'd watched enough TV to know what _that_ was) she realized that this must all be pre-arranged, and the man with the European accent was the reason they were all here.

"Stage Manager, I got a car coming up the back alley," came another voice, and after a moment Dotty recognized the faint southern drawl.

Francine turned towards her associate, leaning forward intently. "Were we expecting more players tonight?"

No," answered Beaman. He adjusted something on the panel in front of him, and the grainy video screen changed to another location, showing a set of stairs leading to a blocky metal entrance. The faded sign read 'stage door'. Sure enough, a car cruised up to the stairs and parked, the headlights going out. A moment later all four doors opened.

"Stage Hand Two, we have four, correction, five unknowns approaching your location," Francine warned, her voice tight and urgent.

Copy, Stage Manager," answered a woman's quiet voice. Dotty's heart froze as she recognized the voice as her daughter Amanda. "We're gonna need backup."

"Tell her I'm on the way," the southern drawl chimed in, his voice staccato with the sound of his pounding footsteps.

"Backup on the way," Francine told her, even as Beaman yanked off his headset. "Go, go!" she urged the man, who surged past Dotty and the boys without even looking at them. "Beaman is coming in the side, Leatherneck up the back. Two minutes!"

"Now, Brian, listen to me very carefully," Amanda whispered, her voice coming through the speakers. It was unnerving, hearing her daughter's familiar voice in such a strange situation. She sounded like she did when instructing her boys, equal parts reassurance and command. "I'm going to move over there, by the curtains. You, stay here. We wait for them to come into our field, and we don't even breathe until our backup gets here."

"Now, wait a second!" protested a voice, only to be cut off.

The reassurance disappeared, and Amanda's voice turned to pure steel. "We don't have a second! You wait right here. We wait for backup. Do you understand?" she whispered intently, her voice sibilant in the microphone. "Good," she answered the unseen nod.

Dotty knew she was all but crushing the boys, but neither one protested her tight grip on them. Try as she might, she could never quite get the next sequence of events quite straight in her mind; the multiple screens showed so many things happening at once.

The men from the car went up the stage door steps and entered the theater, their dark images moving into then out of range of that camera. The man called Leatherneck eased up to the side door a scant minute later.

"Frankie?" he whispered urgently, his body tension visible even in the grainy camera image.

"Wait for King," she whispered, one holding her headset close to her ear, the other clenching with impotent frustration at her side. "Amanda – Leatherneck's outside the door; Beaman should be there any second…"

And then the voice Amanda had called Brian suddenly yelled "FREEZE!"

"Jeffries, you IDIOT!" Francine shouted, and added a word that Dotty usually didn't care to hear said in front of the boys. "Leatherneck, go! Extras! Move in now! We have multiple bogies!"

Even as she spoke, the sharp barks of gunfire rang out, and a voice yelled in pain. Almost immediately, shouting from Amanda and Leatherneck was audible, along with the sound of more gunshots echoing through the multiple microphones. A cacophony of yelling and thumping made interpreting the action impossible.

In the meantime, on the screen with Lee and the unknown man and his driver, all three froze at the muffled, distant sound of gunfire.

"You double-crossing me, man?" Lee shouted, pulling a gun from the back waistband of his slacks. The fuzzy image was hard to follow as the burly driver attacked Lee, but Dotty saw the gun go flying. The two struggled mightily, a battle that frequently left the view of the tiny camera. Francine stood at the console, visibly torn between watching the events and running straight out to join them.

The boys cheered as their mother's boyfriend finally rammed the bigger man into the heavy wooden door frame, the impact driving the man to his knees, where Lee's right cross promptly knocked him out. Unfortunately the first man, the one with the accent, had retrieved the gun dropped earlier and had it pointed at Lee.

To everyone's relief the door flew open seconds later and the skinny man called Beaman flew into the room. He promptly tripped over the one lying unconscious on the floor, but the distraction was enough to allow Lee to kick out with a move that impressed even Dotty, making the gun fly out of the man's hand. Two punches later, the man was unconscious on the floor.

"Francine, what the hell is going on?" Lee demanded, shaking his hand and flexing his fingers to make sure they still worked.

"I don't know! We had five goons come through the side door!"

"Amanda was right – this bastard was gonna double-cross his customer! Beaman, take care of these two," he ordered, heading out of the room.

The camera watched as the skinny agent cuffed both unconscious men. Another screen showed a second car slam to a stop, the occupants bailing out and storming the same stage door as they called their positions to the harried blonde in the truck, but Dotty no longer cared. She was listening intently as Lee ran, shouting for Amanda to answer him.

The silence lasted far too long, but was actually only a few seconds before Amanda's voice answered, sounding very breathy and painful. "Stage Manager, we have one in the nest," she announced.

Unable to see any of the participants on the now-empty screens, Dotty trembled as she listened to the frantic voice of Lee Stetson.

"Amanda? Amanda! Are you all right?"

Her voice was breathless, but steady when she answered. "I'm fine, Lee. Brian caught one in the side. He's bleeding, but I don't think it's too bad."

"Oh, thank God," he answered, and there was a suspiciously long silence, perforated by fabric rustling, and then a low moan or groan – which was decidedly NOT one of pain or protest – came from an unidentifiable source. Francine cleared her throat pointedly, reminding everyone that they were still on the air, so to speak.

"Right," Lee announced unnecessarily, and was strictly business as his voice was joined by Leatherneck and another trio of voices, two male, one female. Their comments were few, and accompanied by the metallic ratcheting noise of handcuffs as they announced that a paramedic was needed for two of the five suspects lying on the ground.

"I got that one in leg," Leatherneck announced. "Who got the one in the shoulder? Jeffries was already down when I came through the door."

"Me. It was me," Amanda answered in a whisper, then took a deep, sighing breath. "I shot him," she said, her voice tremulous but determined. "He's the one who shot Brian – he was going to shoot him again. He – he would have killed him."

"The suspect was aiming at a downed agent?" asked another voice, one that hadn't been heard before. It was a deeper voice, and sounded somewhat familiar to Dotty.

"Yes, sir," answered Amanda.

"Good job, Mrs. King. I'm sure agent Jeffries will be thanking you personally, right after I rip him a new one for disobeying a superior and jumping the gun before his backup arrived!"

"Thank you, sir," Amanda replied. A moment later, she spoke again, her voice lower and more intimate. "Lee?"

"Yeah?"

"You know all those times you told me to wait in the car, and I didn't wait in the car?"

"Mm-hmm," Lee's voice rumbled.

"And then I told you I was sorry, and you'd say 'uh huh' as if you didn't believe me?"

"Yes, I remember those times," his deep voice admitted tensely. "I'd tell you to wait, and then every time, there you were." His tone changed to a more conciliatory one. "Usually, though, you were right."

"But not always," she replied, her voice sounding penitent. "Lee?"

"Yes?"

"I'm really, REALLY sorry."

There was a masculine snort of amusement. "Oh, Amanda…"

The next little while was a whirlwind of boring moments and overwhelming chatter. Francine's attitude thawed enough to give the family a few updates, telling them what was expected, and that they would be moved somewhere and talked to before they'd be allowed to leave.

"I WILL be allowed to speak to my daughter, won't I?" Dotty asked tartly. The answer was vaguely positive, and before too long someone climbed into the front of the truck and they were moving somewhere. The boys watched, fascinated, as Francine shut down the audio and video feeds, marking the tapes that had been recorded and had everything ship shape and packed into a neat stack by the time they arrived. When the van doors opened, they were in an underground and completely anonymous parking garage.

They were politely ushered to a room that had a mirror on one wall. The boys were ecstatic when someone brought them some Moby burgers and root beer, and continued to chatter a mile a minute with questions that had no answer and endless rehashing of the action they'd witnessed earlier. Dotty politely declined the food, ignored the boys, and sat drumming her nails on the table as she waited.

Her patience was thoroughly run out when the door finally opened, but her irritated rant was derailed by the familiar figure of a man who'd she'd already dealt with twice before. His suit was rumpled in places, but his manner was entirely professional.

"Mr. Melrose? It is Mr. Melrose, right? What are you doing here?"

Billy Melrose nodded in an acknowledgement. "Good evening, Mrs. West. Boys. Everything all right here?"

"Yeah, we're great!" gushed Phillip, his brother echoing those sentiments.

"I have a few questions – MORE than a few questions," Dotty interrupted. "And for once, I would like a straight answer."

The man's dark features creased with a fond smile, and he gestured to Dotty's chair with a courteous wave. "You're right, Mrs. West. I think you're due a few straight answers. Won't you sit down, please?"

She sat warily.

"First of all, I'd like to apologize for misleading you the last few times we've met. It's our job to be… oblique, and sometimes we get carried away." He fumbled into his jacket pocket, and handed her a small leather folder, holding it open for her to see the badge and identification card.

"We've never actually been introduced, at least not properly. My name is William Melrose, but please, call me Billy. I'm the section chief for a top secret government intelligence organization called the Agency. We deal with issues of national security that are too sensitive for the C.I.A. or the F.B.I."

"Secret government intelligence…You're a spy," Dotty concluded with disbelief. She glanced again at the identification he handed her, which listed his name and rank and various other bits of information that she couldn't make heads or tails of.

"I'm the supervisor for spies," he corrected gently. "And tonight you and your grandsons wandered into the final act of a highly dangerous cat-and-mouse game that involves both people and merchandise that I'm not at liberty to discuss with you. That also means that you can't discuss this with anyone else."

Giving the boys a significant look, Melrose suddenly exuded a command presence that was very intimidating. "Phillip, Jamie, I know that you'll be tempted to tell your friends about what you saw and heard. However, for reasons of national security, and for your own safety, you cannot talk to anyone about what happened tonight."

The boys' ebullient mood sobered, and they exchanged worried glances. "What about our Mom?" Jamie asked plaintively. "Can't we talk to her? She was there…"

"Your mother and your grandmother are fine," he reassured them. "Lee Stetson is also approved."

"Speaking of which," Dotty began, only to sputter to a halt when Melrose rose from his seat.

"Speaking of which," he echoed as he crossed to the door and opened it. A moment later he backed up, allowing Amanda and Lee to enter the room.

A flurry of hugs and excitement broke out; the boys were once more chattering at top speed, asking question after question without waiting for answers. Dotty hugged her daughter quickly, but her voice seemed to have frozen in her throat before she could get anything out.

"Okay, okay," Melrose told the boys, getting them to calm down. Beaming, he turned to Dotty. "Mrs. West, it is my pleasure to introduce you to two of the best intelligence agents it has ever been my pleasure to know. Lee Stetson, and his partner Amanda King."

It was a long moment before she found her voice. "My daughter and her fiancé are spies?" Dotty shouted, aghast.

"Her _fiancé_?!" questioned the older man, giving his employees a pointed look under lowered brows. The couple wilted visibly. The boys were equally intrigued, but by their grins, were not upset.

"Um, yeah, Billy… about that," Lee began, only to stumble to a halt as his supervisor lifted one hand for silence.

"Later," he told them. "I think this lady has the floor first. Come find me when she's done with you." With a wink that told Dotty he was enjoying himself far too much, William Melrose waltzed out of the room, leaving Amanda and Lee to the mercies of her family.

"So," Dotty said, her sharp, suspicious gaze raking them up and down. "You two are spies..."

_fin_


End file.
